Laying It Out

The visual impact of a game book is very nearly as important as the words in it. Illustrations are part of that, but another aspect is the layout of the book. For Adventures in Oz: Fantasy Roleplaying Beyond the Yellow Brick Road, I went for 2 separate layouts.

The print version of the book is laid out to measure 6 x 9 inches, a nice compact size that can fit on the shelf with your other Oz books, or game books.
But as I contemplated the digital release of my book, I realized that this layout was not quite right. While it can look fine on a screen, there are those PDF buyers who want to print the book out, either in whole or in part. And it's current layout would waste a lot of paper. So the PDF layout would have to be 8 1/2 x 11.

One of the problems with most game books in PDF is that they use a standard 2-column layout. Once you've zoomed in to the point where you can read it comfortably on a screen, your reading process is something like this: Read, scroll down, read more, scroll right, scroll up, read, scroll down, read more. A lot of scrolling, right? So I decided that I would throw that methodology out on its head. Or, more accurately, its side.
(Typical gaming PDF. Specifically the Advanced Player's Guide for the Pathfinder RPG by Paizo Publishing)
(Adventures in Oz: Fantasy Roleplaying Beyond the Yellow Brick Road PDF layout)

By turning the page on its side, it's much easier to read. Once you've finished one column of text, simply scroll to the right and read the next column. While you might have to do some scaling to get this to work on your tablet, it is far less scaling than would be required of your typical gaming PDF.

So why not support gaming PDFs that are designed for the way you actually read them? And don't forget, you can also get AiO in EPUB format, a specialized format that dynamically lays itself out for optimum viewing, no matter what you're using to read it.

5e Doesn't Have To Suck

As new developments are announced for the latest edition of Dungeons & Dragons, there is a seemingly inevitable litany of complaints.

This time, it's about the announcement that the modularity of the ruleset would allow players at the same table to use different character sheets and maybe even different rules. The more I think on it, though, the more I realize that it's not a terrible idea.

Let's say that the Basic Set for D&D 5e includes the basic combat system (truly the core of any version of D&D), basic classes, and a basic skill system (maybe only a few dungeon-specific skills that advance automatically by level, as in 4e).

Then the Advanced Set introduces feats for each class (Basic Set might have only included a few feats, or gone back to something like Weapon Proficiencies and thus feats are a supplement, not necessarily a replacement, for that), maybe some more classes built around ideas in the advanced combat rules, and the skill advancement is broken down into 3e-ish skill points for finer customization.

There's really nothing keeping an Advanced Character and a Basic character from sitting side by side. The Basic character may be proficient in 5 weapons and have a static value in their skills, while the Advanced character has spent his 5 proficiency slots being that much better with his longsword (maybe picking up a few tricks) and might have fewer points in each skill, but have points in more skills.

The only real challenge here seems to be the implementation of prestige classes (or whatever they decide to call them). For much of their existence, prestige classes bribed players to take them by offering significant power boosts when compared to a base-class character. But since Basic (no p-class) and Advanced (p-class allowed) characters would have to balance against each other, this sort of thing really can't happen.

There even seems to be hints of a 3rd set for activities "beyond the dungeon." with rules for social influence and kingdom building a la Birthright.

The real sticking point here (and I think it's valid as well) is that the pitch they have provided seems geared towards letting players decide the complexity of the rules used at the table, instead of the Dungeon Master. And since the DM is the one making the rulings on the events at the table, I think letting them make the decision as to what rules are going to be used in those rulings is perfectly fair.

Adventures in Oz goes Atomic!

That's right, folks. The wonderful guys over at the Atomic Array have finally managed to make my deranged ramblings sound coherent. We talk about The Wizard of Oz, in movie and book form and how that all fits into a game.

Check it out!

As someone mentioned on my Facebook fan page (I have one, you should check it out), I should mention conventions where I will be demoing AiO. And if you've been following my blog for any length of time, you know that my favorite convention is coming up next month. That's right, DunDraCon!

Just like last year, I have signed up to run the sample adventure The Jaded City of Oz twice: Once as a walk-up game for their kids program (though grownups have shown up) and again on the regular convention schedule (requiring convention registration). If you were at either of these last year, you know that I gave away a free print copy of the game at each of these demos, making some gamers incredibly happy and others Insanely Jealous (TM). Depending on demand and my energy level, I might also make an appearance in the open gaming area and run unscheduled demos as well. (probably no freebies there, though.)

If you've already purchased a copy of AiO and you bring it to the convention, I will gladly autograph it or let you take my picture with it or whatever.

Oz Character of the Month: The Scarecrow

Amusing fact: While everyone knows about the Twelve Days of Christmas, they generally don't know that these days fall after Christmas. These twelve days mark the time between Jesus' birth (Christmas) and the arrival of the Three Wise Men. So the Twelfth Day of Christmas is today. It's also my niece's birthday, so on the off chance that she's reading this: Happy Birthday!

Now on to business.

Our Oz character this month is another preview from the Characters Pack: The Scarecrow.

Speaking of the Characters Pack, it just went down to 99 cents. This is not a sale, but a permanent price drop. So if you've ever wanted to bring the heroes from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (and lots of other classic Oz stories) into your game, there's never been a better time.

Another Year Come and Gone

Well, Christmas is over and done with. I got some quality time with my family and I hope you all spent some time with yours.

Now to take a look at the past year and consider what path to take in the coming year.

Achievements for the blog:

Most popular post: While my initial post about Oz: Dark & Terrible garnered the most hits in this calendar year, the most popular post that I wrote this year was How Not To Promote Yourself On The Internet. It also qualified as the most commented post of the year, as well.

Apparently, snark sells on the internet. I got a bit of that myself in November thanks to the Mistress of Doom. The Mistress' blog has been taken down, but that little bit of "special attention" did some good.

Speaking of the Kickstarter, it qualifies as my lowest low point this year. Sales of AiO had been pretty slow, and I felt like I may have hit a ceiling in terms of getting customers. I figured the best way to get in more customers (or at least money) was to release another supplement. In order to get the money to do it, I tried Kickstarter.

As the month wore on and it didn't look like I was going to get funded, I was getting ready to throw in the towel. While I wouldn't delete the blog or my products (I don't really do fits of pique), I was going to step back from it and maybe try something else. Another blog, another game, who knows?

Then Teach Your Kids to Game Week happened. That made November my strongest sales month of the year. Certainly not the time to call it quits. Life is a funny thing sometimes.

Thanks to that sales boost, 2011 netted me 99 sales to date. Along with 108 from last year, I'm now at 207 sales overall. Not terribly strong, and not to my goal of 300 yet.

The Characters Pack, my first supplement, pulled in only 36 sales this year. Which is not bad, considering that it has pretty much paid for itself at this point.

So what is the future of AiO?

Like I said last year, my goal is too keep things small and manageable. The big things need the money that the little things generate in order to come about. So no more Beyond the Deadly Desert talk for a while.

It has always been in my plans to do adventures for AiO and things are finally getting to a point where I can hire writers and artists and such to do them. But wait! Aren't I a writer? Why am I not writing the adventures?

Frankly, the big reason is that The Jaded City of Oz, the sample adventure in the main book, was so crazy-awesome that I don't think I can come up with anything in the same league. Once the adventure pool has diversified some, I can definitely see myself giving it a go, though.

The blog will be changing some, too. I had originally intended this blog to be a marketing tool, so that people could see what I'm selling and why it's so awesome. But my desire to keep the blog on a weekly update schedule conflicts with that sometimes and the blog has become a bit more general. So, in marketing speak, the blog has become more about "conversation" than "conversion." While I don't think I can switch completely into "shilling mode", expect a little more product visibility.

What about my goal of getting into stores? Hasn't left my mind. I've got things to a point where I just need a bit of money to afford my initial inventory.

TLDR: I have lots of things I want to do, but I need my products to sell in order to do them.

Setting the Stakes

I know it's just a few days until Christmas, but I started something with last week's blog and I want to see it through.

Last week, I talked about the benefits of allowing a player, through their character, to fail. This week, we're going to look just a little bit deeper at how a Narrator can do this effectively.

In Evil Hat's game Spirit of the Century, they give a particularly good piece of advice. Whenever a player describes an action, but before you get out the dice, consider what would happen if the player succeeds at the roll. Then consider what would happen if the roll failed. Only roll the dice if both potential results are interesting. Otherwise, assume the interesting result.

Let's look at an example. A player has built a Scholar character with a respectable Brains skill and the Narrator has some information that they want this player to have. While the Narrator is considering calling for a dice roll, first they look at the result of a successful roll which is that the player gets the information. But what happens on a failed roll? The player doesn't get the information. If this information is needed to advance the story, then that means the story comes to a screeching halt until that player succeeds on that dice roll. This is what I meant when I mentioned the "Mandatory Skill Roll Bug" last week.

Since failure isn't interesting, the Narrator assumes success. They give that player the information they need to advance the story.

Now, if the information wasn't vital to the adventure, then failure becomes interesting. Because the adventure can continue, but in a different way. So if the Scholar was going with his friends to face the Nome King, this Brains roll could be to remember that Nomes are vulnerable to eggs. Going against a Nome without eggs is possible, but eggs make it much easier.

Setting stakes in combat is vital for playing AiO. Since nothing dies in Oz, the loser of a battle does not simply move aside for the victor. If the Narrator wishes to do something like this, they are free to do so, declaring that the enemy ran away or fell unconscious or similar. But that removes the possibility of certain stories. An example I gave on the Pulp Gamer podcast was a defeated dragon crying in the corner of its cave.

The other reason that setting stakes in combat is so important is the possibility of losing. Since characters will survive their defeat, all the tricks that other games use to protect them from it become less important. But that means you have to be ready for when it happens. And just like things I've been saying, failure should be just as interesting as success or else it's not worth rolling for.